Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

The main thing wrong with Shadow Priests is our survivability. The attempt to giving us more survivability is lowing our Dispersion cooldown. This is not very effective because while we are Dispersioned we are unable to attack or get some distance from our opponent(s). However, there are several ways of fixing this problem. So, if you have your own idea add it, or voice which one you enjoy the most.

1.) Change Dispersion back to the original version on the beta. Make it restore 6% health and mana again. This will allow us to take some more damage after the effect ends and help our survivability. Also, the effect will be minimal in PvE.

2.) Give Dispersion a small AoE snare effect. The range should be 5-10yrds and lasts at least the duration of the Dispersion. This will give us some repositioning advantage and should help our survivability a little.

3.) Give Dispersion an AoE slowing effect, similar to the Death Knight Desecration talent in the unholy tree. This is the way to go if we think #2 is a little extreme.

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

Well for Shadow not real good with it but here is my thoughts;

1. Give us a channel fear as that of warlocks
2. Give Dispersion a 60% increase in movement and immune to all snare affects and loss of control of character with 6.2% regen on Mana/Health w/ increased
affect if attacked while in Dispersion by 1.8%.
3. Give a slowing affect of 30% and decrease in melee of 15% after being feared for a 8 sec duration.

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

Have the dispersion cloud perform similar to mirror images. When you disperse you form 3 dispersion clouds that move randomly in opposite directions. One is you, two are fakes with matching HP and buffs. At the end of dispersion the two fakes disappear.

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

If they gave Dispersion a small, AoE root that lasted the duration, it would actually let us use it as an escape mechanism. I quite like that idea, but it would still be one chance to get out of melee range every 2 minutes. Something more dependable would be preferable.

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

I would say that would be pretty hard to balance in terms of PVE, making mobs and bosses reset. Something using existing game mechanics, like a snare or a root, might work better.

Shadow Word: Bind

Single target, short cooldown, 1.5 second cast time, 26 yard range with Shadow Reach.

The priest binds his shadow to the targets, stopping both of their movement. If either player removes the effect, the binding is cancelled, restoring freedom to both players. Lasts 6 seconds.

With this, we would be able to hold players still long enough to either set up all of our DoTs on them, or cast a Mind Control so that we can run them away from us. If we cast it right after Psychic Scream, then it would actually have a point, too. The five or ten feet they run would get them out of melee range so we can root them safely.

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

Single target, short cooldown, 1.5 second cast time, 26 yard range with Shadow Reach.

The priest binds his shadow to the targets, stopping both of their movement. If either player removes the effect, the binding is cancelled, restoring freedom to both players. Lasts 6 seconds.

Kagemane no Jutsu ! Lol

Althought it's a naruto like, it's a great idea !
But I would reduce the cast time by 0,5 sec or increase the range to 32 with shadow reach or no cooldown with a regressing time effetc.

It's amazing how Shadow priests are the only ones who need to think of ways to make them better themselves and not Bli², and even when Bli decides to up us, it's always so ridiculus when you see what others get ...

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

I think I suggested this in another thread, but they could add a stacking debuff on Mind Blast hits:

First stack reduces the cast time of your next Mind Control by 1.5 seconds. 2 stacks reduce it by 3 seconds.

That way, you could use a Mind Blast/MC combo if you can get the cast off, or wait for the cooldown on Mind Blast again to get an instant one.

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

I think I suggested this in another thread, but they could add a stacking debuff on Mind Blast hits:

First stack reduces the cast time of your next Mind Control by 1.5 seconds. 2 stacks reduce it by 3 seconds.

That way, you could use a Mind Blast/MC combo if you can get the cast off, or wait for the cooldown on Mind Blast again to get an instant one.

And what would you accomplish by using that? Imagine a 3v3 game, and let's say you instantly MC someone. Then what? It breaks in the next 0.000001 sec while you're getting beat. Bad idea.

Healing trough VE (or change of mechanics) increased and giving us something like aura mastery that we cannot be interrupted would rock. However, our damage is still too low, and mana sucks ass in pvp.

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

Like someone said above, our survivability shouldn't depend completely on a 2min cooldown, we need some other form of defense, especially against melee.

My idea would be to change a deep shadow talent to improve our shield, for example whenever the shield breaks it has a knockback on all hostile targets around the priest and possibly applying a snare to them aswell.

I think that would solve alot of issues with Spriest survivability and would have -very- good synergy with our other talents, a melee class jumps us for example, gets knocked back and slowed, imp fade can get us some distance and Dispersion can be saved and not have to be used in the first 5sec of every fight against a melee.

Would work very well with what we already have imo, we would have a way to get distance from melee like all casters should (portals for warlocks, knockbacks for druids/shamans, blink for mages etc) and a good way to survive burst attempts with dispersion.

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

And what would you accomplish by using that? Imagine a 3v3 game, and let's say you instantly MC someone. Then what? It breaks in the next 0.000001 sec while you're getting beat. Bad idea.

Healing trough VE (or change of mechanics) increased and giving us something like aura mastery that we cannot be interrupted would rock. However, our damage is still too low, and mana sucks ass in pvp.

If you can't figure out how being able to make a character unhealable by the opponent, being able to move them out of Line of Sight of their healer so it can't be dispelled, or having an instant interrupt would be useful for PVP, then I really don't think me explaining it slowly and simply would be worth my time.

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

What good does a knockback if the melee just sprints/shadowsteps/intercepts/deathgrips back to you ASAP? We need a reliable snare to be able to kite melee that's it. We already have ways to get away from melees (at least on paper, through dispersion and imp. fade) - but they always are at us again 1 second later because they all have good gap closers while we don't have a way to kite them.

Mindflay slow should stay on for 10 seconds no matter how long you channel it, that would rock.

You know what is better than drinking a beer? Brewing your own beer. And then drinking it. And then... Drinking another beer. And then, punching somebody in the snout! That's what!

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

I can imagine players whining a lot about a 10-second ranged snare without a cooldown, honestly. If they made each tick add a three-second snare, then you could do one tick to get a short snare to ket away, or channel the entire thing for a 9-second snare.

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

Re: Shadow Priest Survivability Ideas - PvP

Originally Posted by Abandon

If you can't figure out how being able to make a character unhealable by the opponent, being able to move them out of Line of Sight of their healer so it can't be dispelled, or having an instant interrupt would be useful for PVP, then I really don't think me explaining it slowly and simply would be worth my time.

Sorry, but your idea is really stupid and useless. Not my fault you think linear and can't see why. However, neither me or you are devs so luckily, we won't see such a change.

Having a dpser sacrifice dps time to open himself for free nuking is really dumb. I'm talking about 3v3 scenario seeing that 2s will pretty much be abandoned in 3.2.